Fallas explained to my friends in Europe, and around the world (Part 5)

 It becomes difficult already to keep the pace of updating things on the go, but I will keep trying. It's 17th March, 7.16 am when I'm writing these words.

An important update from yesterday is that the best falla in València in 2024 is Falla "L'antiga de Campanar". (The official name of a falla consists of the names of the two or three streets that they "own", this is known as "demarcació", but then each falla has a more informal name and some times is known by this name, as in the case of "L'antiga"). This was announced after a long reading of the list of prizes. There's also some money on it to encourage everyone to perform better.

Fun fact: same falla won "ninot indultat" and the first award.

16th March, 17h

It's the time to pick up the "estandart" (kind of a flag) that recognizes each falla for its achievements. The moment was extremely crazy and busy. It was Saturday, which means that there are more visitors, and it looked like everyone agreed to be there at the same time.

Some pictures and videos to share how that was:

(By the way, 7.27 now and I heard the first firecracker of the day). They are getting ready for la despertà, remember?

One of the most impressive part of las Fallas is that a lot of things happen in the streets. This is the waiting time where music is playing funny and popular songs and falleras y falleros sing and dance not to get bored (as if they had time to get bored...)

The way back "home" It's also funny but people starts being tired (remember, second day in a row with around 19k steps in my case). Despite being exhausted, people will do anything to be in much events as possible. Dinner, fireworks and then verbena or go around the city until late at night.

This is part of the fireworks on the 16th. (There will be another night pyrotechnic show tonight, and the one that people loves more, on the 18th, which is called as "la nit del foc", the night of the fire. For me is like when in an athletics competition the bell sounds meaning that only one lap is left, but in this case referring to a day).

17th March 

Time to go for "esmorzar", not a breakfast, not a lunch and neither a brunch. This is a bocadillo (not a Sandwich) eaten some time between 9.30 and 12.30, if possible on the sun with a cold beer.

In the meantime, the parade to pick up the prizes for the big fallas takes place now, same event that yesterday afternoon with the kids, but now for the adults. There is a constraint in here, that is that at 13h the "Plaça de l'ajuntament" needs to host the mascletà, so this event must finish before the other starts.

This will be prior to "passacarrer", mascletà and the first day of "ofrena". The event where thousands of falleras bring flowers to the Virgin, "la Mare de Déu dels desemparats". 

The heart of the city will move from "Plaça de l'ajuntament" to Plaça de la mare de Déu, where an empty wooden structure waits for millions of flowers.

To be continued...